22. Chapter 22 #3
“Did you believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know at the time that messages would be intercepted?”
“No.”
“Did you know messages sent from the phone would be answered by someone other than Madelyn?”
“No.”
“Did you have any role in altering or deleting her communications?”
“No.”
Grace watched her for a moment. The truth spell remained steady.
I heard Maddie’s breath leave her.
Not relief exactly. Something more complicated. Betrayal had many rooms; discovering one person had not entered all of them did not restore the house, but perhaps it left one wall standing.
“Did you later learn the phone had been tampered with?” Grace asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After everything. After Sage died. After Council investigators came.”
Grace nodded. “At the time you returned the phone to Madelyn, you had no knowledge of tampering?”
“No.”
Grace did not linger.
That mattered too. She had no interest in making Sloan guilty of crimes she had not committed. Prosecutors who needed every witness to be every kind of villain usually had weak cases or weak discipline. Grace had neither.
She turned the page. The room seemed to tighten before she spoke.
“The wine,” Grace said.
Sloan’s composure cracked.
Not fully. Not yet. But her chin dipped, and her throat worked twice before she answered a question not yet asked.
Grace allowed the silence to do its work.
“Did you know the wine given to Madelyn at the festival had been altered?”
The prosecution counsel rose so quickly his chair struck the table behind him.
“Objection. Assumes facts not yet in evidence.”
Grace did not blink. “The witness has personal knowledge of the festival. I am asking whether she knew about the drink Madelyn had been given.”
The Magistrate looked to Sloan. “The witness will answer if she knows.”
Sloan’s fingers went bloodless on the stand.
“Yes,” she said.
The chamber stirred hard enough this time that the Magistrate struck his staff.
“Order.”
The sound cracked across the stone.
I did not move, but my shadows answered beneath my skin.
Yes.
What they already knew. Not supposition. Not inference. Knowledge.
Maddie’s hands had gone still in her lap. Nikolay’s head bowed for one breath, then lifted. The amber in his eyes burned colder than before.
Grace’s voice remained controlled. “What did you know?”
“I knew something had been added to make her relax.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know who put it in.”
“But you knew it was there.”
“Yes.”
“Before she drank it.”
Sloan shut her eyes.
The truth spell pressed.
“Yes.”
A low sound came from somewhere in the back of the gallery. Bronc, perhaps. Or one of Iron Valor. The kind of sound a wolf made when language stood between him and violence by a thread.
Grace did not look back.
“Why did you not warn her?”
Sloan opened her eyes. The tears came now, steady and unwanted.
“I thought it would help.”
The prosecution counsel made an exasperated sound. “Honored Magistrate—”
“Sit down,” the Magistrate said.
The words were not loud. They were final.
The counsel sat.
Grace waited until the chamber had quieted again.
“Help whom?” she asked.
Sloan’s mouth trembled. “Maddie.”
“How?”
“I thought if she relaxed, she’d listen. Really listen. She was angry and hurt all the time when we talked about Nikolay. I thought she was clinging to him because of the bond, not because he was good for her.”
“And you believed a drug would help her make a better decision?”
Sloan flinched. “I didn’t think of it as a drug.”
“What did you think of it as?”
“A relaxant. Something ceremonial. I thought—” Her voice broke, then steadied badly. “I thought she would be happier with her own kind.”
Grace’s eyes did not soften. “You believed that strongly enough to allow her consent to be impaired.”
The word consent changed the chamber. It often did.
Sloan looked at Maddie then. This time Maddie looked back.
“Yes,” Sloan whispered.
“Say it clearly.”
Sloan’s shoulders shook once. “Yes. I allowed her consent to be impaired.”
A silence followed that no staff needed to enforce.
Grace did not gloat. I loved her for that, too.
She let Sloan’s admission stand not as performance, but as evidence. Terrible evidence. People did great harm most easily when they believed themselves benevolent. Cruelty announced itself less often than righteousness did.
“Did Madelyn know the wine was altered?”
“No.”
“Did she agree to drink something that would affect her judgment?”
“No.”
“Did she seem capable of making fully informed decisions after drinking it?”
“No.”
Grace stepped back from the lectern by half a pace.
Not retreat.
Repositioning.
“Now let us discuss the night of the festival.”
Sloan’s breathing changed.
The chamber changed with it.
Even Lucian, in the gallery, had gone still.
His repaired smile remained in place, but it no longer looked effortless.
Pain and interest had stripped some of the polish from him.
He understood forced rituals. He understood altered consent.
He understood humans and others made pliable for stronger creatures’ convenience.
Perhaps he heard echoes he did not like entering the record.
Good.
“Were you with the elders when Madelyn was taken from the party?” Grace asked.
“No.”
“Where were you?”
“Near the main fire. Speaking with others.”
“Did you know the elders intended to take her to the clearing?”
“No.”
“Did you know there was an altar prepared?”
“No.”
“Did you know she would be restrained?”
“No.”
“Did you know Sage intended to perform a forced-bond ritual?”
Sloan’s face twisted. “No.”
The truth spell held steady.
Grace paused.
Her voice lowered.
“What made you go toward the clearing?”
Sloan’s hands slipped from the edge of the stand and then returned, as if she needed something solid or she would vanish from the chair entirely.
“I heard screaming.”
Maddie’s eyes dropped to her lap.
Nikolay took her hands.
Grace stood very still.
“What did you hear her scream?”
Sloan’s mouth opened. No sound came.
The chamber waited.